In the field of cinematography, positive films used for projection are generally produced using the method described below. Filming is carried out using a color negative film for cinematographic purposes to thereby obtain a master negative. Next, the master negative is exposed on a dupe material and a plurality of dupe negatives are made. Positive films for cinema use are then prepared by exposing the number of positive films required for cinematographic purposes using the dupe negative film. Direct exposure of the positive films for cinema use using the master negative is not carried out to ensure that the precious master negative is not damaged during the exposure of the large number of copies which have to be made. This procedure has been described in detail by L. Bernard Happe in Basic Motion Picture Technology, pages 280 to 303, Focal Press, 1975, and on pages 1 to 10 and 124 to 131 of the Japanese Cinematography and Television Technical Association publication Professional Cine and TV Technical Manual, 1989/1990.
The two types of materials indicated below are used for the dupe materials in such a procedure. The first type of material is referred to as a color intermediate material for cinematographic purposes and is typified by Eastmancolor 5243 (made by the Eastman Kodak Co., USA) and Fujicolor Intermediate 8213 (made by the Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.). These are ultra-fine grained negative type films for print purposes and they can be developed in the same processing machines as cinematographic negative materials. Development processing is described more specifically as the process ECN-2 in volume 1 of the Eastman Kodak publication Manual for the Processing of Eastman Color Films. A positive image with masking is obtained on exposing the master negative onto the intermediate material and a dupe negative can then be obtained by exposing once again onto the intermediate material. This method has the advantage of enabling the negative film processors already installed in the cinematographic film processing house to be used, but the dupe material has to be used twice and, as well as being complicated and expensive, there is a serious disadvantage in terms of the deterioration which arises in image quality.
The other type of dupe material is a color reversal intermediate material. This is typified by Eastmancolor 5249 from the Eastman Kodak Co. This is an ultra-fine grain print reversal type film and it is developed and processed in a special reversal processor. The development of this material has been described in more detail in the Eastman Kodak publication Manual for the Processing of Eastmancolor Reversal Intermediate Film Using Process CRI-1. Dupe negatives can be made with a single reversal processing operation when the master negative is exposed onto a reversal intermediate material. There is an advantage in respect of image quality and cost when such a method is used since only one exposure is involved, but it is necessary to install a new processor and, as well as using more space and involving more expense, the developers of this type are difficult to control and much effort is required to maintain a constant image quality. Because of these disadvantages, this type of material is not used as widely as the former type of material.
On the other hand, the use of direct positive type photosensitive materials has been considered as a means of obtaining direct positive images from positive images easily. The direct positive photosensitive materials include solarization type and Herschel effect type materials, which employ pre-fogged emulsions; and light fogging types, types with which a developer which contains a nucleating agent is used, and types in which a nucleating agent is incorporated into the material, which employ emulsions which have not been pre-fogged. These have been described, for example, by T. H. James in The Theory of the Photographic Process, Fourth Edition, Chapter 7, pages 182 to 193. Methods in which internal latent image type emulsions from among the emulsions which have not been pre-fogged are used have been disclosed in Research Disclosure volume 151, No. 15162 (published November 1976) pages 72 to 87, and in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,592,250, 2,466,957, 2,497,875, 2,588,982, 3,317,322, 3,761,266, 3,761,276 and 3,796,577, British Patents 1,151,363, 1,150,553 and 1,011,062, JP-A-63--8741 and JP-A-63-146035. (The term "JP-A" as used herein signifies an "unexamined published Japanese patent application.") In these documents the direct positive materials are described in terms of their role as materials for obtaining direct positive images from positive images. However, no method for obtaining direct dupe negatives from negative images in such as way as to solve the problems of the present invention has been described in these publications. It is disclosed in JP-A-64-44940, for example, that colored couplers can be used conjointly with internal latent image type silver halide grains, but there is no specific example and there is no mention of the new problems such as the worsening of the stability of the photosensitive material which is caused by the conjoint use of colored couplers and there is no mention of any means for resolving these problems. Moreover, there are new problems which arise on processing with the processing agents for cinematographic negative films. These include, for example, color forming failure and de-silvering failure with iodine containing processing baths (for example, color development baths and bleach baths), and occurrence of bleach staining and retarded de-silvering rates due to the use of persulfate bleaching agents, etc. These problems cannot be anticipated from the known data indicated above, and no means have been proposed for overcoming these problems.